EVESHAM FESTIVAL REPORT
BY TOM SCHOLEY
Kamasan Starlets have won the Match Fishing Team Championship, providing a dramatic finale to the Evesham Festival weekend. With 14 of the country’s top teams taking part, competition was always going to be intense – but few would have predicted that the team result would still be hanging in the balance as the last of the 70 anglers was being weighed in.
Last year’s champions, Daiwa Dorking were favourites to take victory, and many thought that they had done enough to win the title for a third time. As the weigh in started on the final section, Dorking were leading by two points, but when Starlets skipper, Mark Downes weighed in an impressive 8-7-8 it signalled a dramatic end to the day. It was common knowledge that Dorking’s Simon Willsmore had caught well on the end peg- but many thought he has more than the 6-9-0 he put on the scales. This gave Starlets four points – and victory with a 59 point total.
Mark told us: “I was delighted with our draw this morning- though I knew that Dorking and Barnsley had good draws as well, and that we would have to get things right on the day if we wanted to take victory. While many anglers sat for the big fish that so often figure in the frame weights at Evesham, we got our heads down with bloodworm and joker – trying to eek as much as we could from the river to gain valuable section points. After an initial bombardment of groundbait and soil, we started off targetting roach, and many including myself had a good first hour. As is often the case at Evesham, things got tougher as the day wore on, and it was only by swapping between rigs, and targetting other species such as perch that we were able to edge in front of rival teams. After several near misses in recent years, it is great to finally get our hands on the winners trophy! ”
In the individual stakes, events took a similarly dramatic twist as the Festival record got broken for a second time in the space of just 24 hours! After drawing peg 27 that won the Shakespeare Final on Saturday, Daiwa Gordon League rod Martyn Howard set his stall out for barbel- fishing an open ended feeder stuffed with dampened 4mm pellets, and an 11mm hair rigged halibut pellet on the hook.
After two hours of the match, he landed the first of four barbel- which gave him a record smashing 39-12-0 total.
Result:
Team
1 Kamasan Starlets 59pts
2 Daiwa Dorking 57pts
3 Ultimate Barnsley Blacks 52pts
Individual
1 Martyn Howard (Daiwa Gordon League) 39-12-0 (peg 27)
2 Tony Skinner (Shakespeare Superteam) 10-4-0 (peg 14)
3 Mark Downes (Kamasan Starlets) 8-7-8 (peg 7)
For full results, check out Octobers issue of Match Fishing Magazine.
